


Love of a Storm

by Billywick



Category: Dota 2
Genre: F/M, fic/art trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 15:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Billywick/pseuds/Billywick
Summary: He would see her again. No matter what skies, waters or oceans of time he'd have to part.(art/fic trade for Anjael of her OTP. I hope I do them justice)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anjael](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Anjael).



Darkness clutched the maze. Thunder or the distant roar of a beast, there was no way of distinguishing what caused the cacophony. How long had she’d followed this path? There was nothing on the walls, the towering sentinels of her endless misery, to guide her way. She didn’t even know where her way would lead, or what awaited at the end. Perhaps, everything. Or, more likely, nothing at all.

 

Time had lost all meaning in the Underscape. Only the ghostly apparition that had ushered her into the maze had given the horrid world a name. Her own? It was long lost. She did not know whom she was, why she was here, or why she needed to go on. 

Standing still however, was worse than movement, and so she did not allow it of herself. Her scales, her skin, they felt dry and uncomfortable and yet she saw no marks, no scrapes. Her body was an ethereal vessel of aching agony and nothing she did could soothe it.

 

No escape, no path, nothing but the darkness and the discomforting, black sky above. It reminded her of depths...a life too distant for her to recall details. Everything in memory was hazy as ink. 

 

She ambled on, lost, searching for something, anything to mark her path, to give her a clue as to what she could possibly be looking for. 

 

He watched, as he had for endless hours. Time did not matter in the maze. Time was nothing to the Underscape. Idly, thunder rolled beneath his hands, lightning shimmered in his body, an ever-present flux of power.

 

“You cannot interfere.”

 

Visage was ever vigilant, the ghostly gargoyle hovering beside him with lazy strokes of his wings. His familiars were as all-seeing as he, herding the damned souls in endless circles.

 

“She deserves her fate.”

 

Lightning cracked and Razor unfurled his whip, toying with the handle in a strange show of idling indecision. Of course Visage was right. But that didn’t mean Razor had to obey. He was the keeper, not the gargoyle. It was his decision, not Visage’s.

And her soul, it had suffered enough in life. Death would be different.

 

“Razor. You are breaking our laws.”

 

“I make the laws.”

 

“She cannot escape!”

 

“She will not.”

 

He took his leave before Visage could tie him further into an argument. This one, she deserved an exception. He’d gladly bend his ancient rules for that.

 

White light. Soft at first. Guiding, beckoning. She moved towards it, felt the cold floor under her cold scales as she was drawn forward. The light moved away, and she followed. It danced around corners, and Slithice gave chase.

 

Twists and turns, spirals and hurdles, the light was giving her something to do, something to explore, a way through the maze.

 

Only when the enormous walls fell behind her and a stone arch rose before her eyes did she realize that light had not been a bobbing orb, but a figure shrouded in thunderous clouds, wreathed with rain, obscured by bolts.

 

“Who are you?” she called, even as the stone arch filled vertically with water. Water that had Slithice yearn for the soft embrace of it, to lose all weight and swim and move as she was meant to.

 

The thunder parted for a tall figure, a visor shielding whatever gaze lay behind it.

 

“You do not remember me.”

 

Slithice stared until she could see lightning bolts when she blinked, but recognition did not come.

 

“I am Razor.”

 

“You brought me here.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That,” she pointed to the arch, “Is for me?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Do you do this a lot?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why did you do this? I can give you nothing.”

“You were someone I once loved.”

 

“I was?”

 

“It was the greatest gift I have been given. This is mine, to you.”

 

She didn’t move, staying still in the eye of his storm. Lightning forked around them, but it was no longer something she needed to fear. It was comforting light, guiding her through the darkness. The maze’s terrifying, huge walls became nothing more than illuminated backdrops to his brilliance. Slithice had always liked watching the surface, the stormy sky as dark as the depths, the lightning forging paths across the endless black. 

 

“Will we meet again?”

 

His visor flickered, a flash of dismayed yellow went through his form.

 

“This is the last. But you will be born again, one day, if you believe it.”

 

“I’ll remember you.”

 

Could a storm smile? Razor didn’t know, nor did his face show anything different to her, but his voice, it demonstrated what expression never could.

 

“You won’t. But I’ll remember you.” 

 

A flash of light as her tail disappeared into the iridescent wall of water. Whatever afterlife awaited Slithice, he’d never know. But she would go, and know she was loved. That was all he could give to her in her final peace.

 


End file.
